A recent study found that between 1999 and 2013, annual premiums for employer-provided health plans increased approximately 182 percent to roughly $16,350 per family.

According to Rick Lindquist and Paul Zane Pilzer, who coauthored The End of Employer-Provided Health Insurance: Why It's Good for You, Your Family, and Your Company, more than 3 million small businesses have decided to go without employer-provided health insurance because of cost.

"It no longer makes financial, legal, or social sense for any U.S. employer to continue providing health insurance to its employees," says Lindquist.

Since 2000, the percentage of Americans covered by employer-provided health insurance has declined annually.

"This trend is indicative of a shift that's only going to accelerate," say the authors.

But they argue that it actually is a benefit to workers because in the face of the rising cost of providing group health insurance, the Affordable Care Act has made it easier and cheaper for most individuals to buy their own insurance.

"But this doesn't mean that small businesses won't help employees get health insurance," adds Lindquist. "Many business owners will replace their group policy with a defined contribution plan that offers a stipend to employees to buy the health insurance that best suits them in the Health Insurance Marketplace. Everyone wins."

Reportedly, consumers are realizing that individual health insurance policies that cover the same medical providers as employer-provided health insurance are now available, regardless of their health, at one-half (pre-subsidy) to one-fourth (after-subsidy) the cost of employer-provided coverage.

Since the mid-1960s, employer-sponsored health insurance has been the primary way Americans bought health insurance because, according to the authors, employer-paid health benefits were tax-free.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that from 1999 to 2013, annual premiums for employer-provided health plans increased approximately 182 percent to roughly $16,350 per family. Only 57 percent of all jobs offered health benefits in 2013, down from 66 percent in 1999. Each year, small business health insurance costs go up by nearly 10 percent on average.

Pilzer and Lindquist predict that over the next three years, 60 percent of small businesses will stop offering employer-provided health insurance in favor of employees buying individual health plans.

"This death spiral is happening faster than expected," notes Lindquist. "Consider what's happening with the nation's largest insurer, WellPoint."

According to 2014 accounts, WellPoint has watched 218,000 members, or 12 percent, of its health plans disappear because small businesses have ended their employer-provided health plans. WellPoint expects this trend to play out over the next two years.

"We think [that the trend of our small business customers ending their group health plans] will be in a more accelerated timeframe over a shorter window of time, meaning this year and next, than over a longer period of time," says WellPoint chief financial officer Wayne DeVeydt.

Lindquist and Pilzer point out that employees with preexisting conditions are now able to purchase individual health insurance plans without exclusions. Healthier employees can get the coverage that is more flexible and portable. And when employers are willing to reimburse their premium costs through defined contribution plans, employees find that they're much happier buying their own plan.

"Employees have more choice in the marketplace," says Lindquist. "They're no longer forced into a one-size-fits-all policy. And if they lose their job, they can keep their health insurance regardless of employment."

The End of Employer-Provided Health Insurance (Wiley, 2014, ISBN: 978-1-119-01211-5) is available for $25.00 at www.healthinsurancerevolution.org/book.